Bennett Price wrote:
> My backup device is a USB 2.0 250 MB Iomega Hard Drive.I'd like to put
> it in my garage, requiring about 20 to 25 feet of wire. The official
> USB specs say 5 meters max; if further use a hub/repeater.
>
> I'm wondering how realistic the 5 meter spec is. I recall that parallel
> printer cables were supposed to be limited to 10 feet or so; 75 foot
> cables worked just fine. Same thing with the specs for RS-232 cables.
>
> Does anyone have any real world experience with long USB 2.0 cables?
> I'm thinking of building mine using unshielded CAT5 cable, one twisted
> pair for power, another for data. Wise? foolish?

I'm sorry I don't have any experienc in that regard. It seems like a
simple enough enterprise, though, to just try it and run some
performance test reading and writing to the volume. If it's not living
up to spec, the addition of a single *powered* hub should fix you right
up. You might have some difficulty in finding a 25-30 ft cable
though--I can't remember seeing one much more that 15 ft.

A pricier altenative, but still nifty to check out is IOGear's Cat-5 USB
extender:

http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=p...net%20Extender

If you had to go 150 ft it would definitely be worth a look, but as it
is a couple of 15 ft and a hub should be enough. I hope you have an
electrical outlet at your midpoint.